AN: Here we go again, humour this time. A simple account of some of what Sam got up to when she got stranded off-world by a malfunctioning DHD and her ensuing rescue.

Not about the details or being true to facts, just a little piece of fun that was rattling around in my head. Could be set in season four but doesn't really matter.

NATURAL FOLLY

Sam Carter was hiding definitively and resolutely. The only trouble was it was a completely futile task. No-one hid from those three for long. Not System Lords, not Ashraks, not renegade soldier. She bit her lip feeling guilty, that was the other reason hiding was futile, sure they had come to this planet specifically looking for her but it was to rescue not hurt her. They had found a way back sooner than she thought possible, it was not that long since she had got left behind.

It was roughly thirty-two local planetary days, which by her calculations was almost forty-five Earth days since the stupid gate malfunctioned. Her team stepped through and she paused for a moment to capture just a little more of the strange energy readings the gate was suddenly displaying on her 'do-hickey machine' as the Colonel called it. A fraction too late she figured out what was going on and before she could reach the event horizon it spluttered and died exactly like an engine running out of gas. Which was essentially what had happened.

Confident in her abilities and mostly unconcerned Sam tried the DHD but there was no signs of life. The stargate and DHD design of this, the first dial to the alpha-numeric Q4A systems, was slightly different and it had worried them from the get-go. That was why they had brought the naquadah generator with them just in case something like this should happen. Naturally Daniel had that under his arm as he passed back through, second to touch home ahead of the Colonel. "Well that was stupid." Sam mused as she automatically went to ground on levering the panel open.

Once it was open she peered inside but kept her distance. The inner workings were completely different and totally minimal. "What the hell?" She wanted to investigate further but knew better, any time now her team would be trying to re-establish a connection. She knew if she could see the workings of the DHD as the gate dialled in she had a good chance at reversing the problem.

The only thing was nothing happened. Thirty minutes later still nothing had happened. Carter was done thrumming her fingers and staring at the inactive piece of alien technology, she was going in.

Forty-eight hours and no sleep later she gave up trying to get the thing to go, but only for the night. From what she could tell the whole system ran off a single piece of crystal glass plating with circuits drawn on it. The design, she guessed was close to a form of Ancient and that meant she could have a real problem. The gate shut down almost immediately after the Colonel had passed through which tabled the possibility that it was powered by the Ancient gene and if that was the case she was totally screwed. But it wasn't the only possibility.

There were two burnt out conduits and a cracked crystal at the back of the DHD. Sam surmised this was the backup power source that they had succeeded in frying when they dialled in the first time. That was why the SGC couldn't reach her now. There was absolutely no juice at all left on her end and therefore no hope of establishing a connection from either side. Knowing exactly which part she had to focus on gave her some hope and she settled down in the fading light to get a cold and broken four hours sleep.

oOo

Sam soon discovered that torrential rain and low night-time temperatures went hand in hand without variation on this planet. After six days of working with the DHD and trying in vain to manually move the locked gate she decided to turn her focus more fully towards her survival. She needed to build a more permanent shelter, build up some food stocks and simply wait it out. She had deliberately chosen Q4A-1289 as their first trial destination. Sure it was right out on the boarder between their solar system and the Pegasus galaxy but it was close to, relatively speaking, a Tok'ra outpost.

Jolinar had left strong memories of the place imprinted in her mind and she immediately recognised the quadrant of space and so after some...gentle persuasion, her father had given in to tell her that the outpost was still active. He had also sworn her to secrecy about the base and told her to leave instructions at the SGC to contact him and only him directly if anything should go wrong with the mission. Sam had done so and now she was confident that someone, someday within the next six months would come rescue her. Until then she would just have to make do and keep working on the DHD. There were still a few desperate measures she had yet to try, like zatting the circuit board and hoping it would cause a mach-4 explosion, but realistically those kinds of things could wait.

oOo

Fourteen days later, local time, her natural fibre fatigues were starting to rapidly disintegrate due to the fluctuating weather. Sam decided she would rather try to keep something aside for the day of her rescue and so placed a river-washed and sun-dried item of each of her basics in a plastic wrap and stashed them under her moss stuffed pillow.

She tried at first to hunt as nature intended but found that her pale complexion offered no camouflage. Next came a rather nasty rash from the mud and leaves she had used as body paint and lastly she gave in to try and fashion together something to wear that was functional and offered some protection from the wind. Her stores were good so she could take her time with this project and rest up at the same time. In truth she had no way of telling what season this was and had no way to judge what lay ahead of her or how long she would have to wait for the guys to come get her. She needed to go and extensively explore this part of the planet. So after three more days she left a recording on the camcorder detailing her intentions and set out on what she hoped would be a maximum of a ten day excursion.

Three days later she turned back. She had discovered she was on an island and that there was nothing but ocean for miles in either direction. This fact gave her great comfort. It meant she would be easy to find as any rescue craft would automatically start searching from the stargate. By the time she returned to her base camp her feet were in quite a state and she had counted herself at twenty-eight days, planet time. She couldn't quite be sure because initially she had been using Earth time but had lost track and switched over.

The next whole day was spent with her feet in the river as she fashioned yet another shift for herself out of the largest banana leaf she had ever seen. She took a lot less care with it and knew she looked like a complete moron wearing two rough-stitched leaves with a hole for her head and two for her arms but the leaf didn't last long and nothing she had found so far would bind for her. It always just fell apart when mashed together.

oOo

And so it was when the day came that the ship flew overhead that she was wearing her native-goes-bananas outfit. Her pride demanded that she make it back to the camp to don her normal clothes. She knew it was stupid but she would never live it down if the guys caught her like this. Besides there was basically no back left in the thing now. The footsteps that she had hidden from passed her by and she breathed a sigh of relief. She could see her destination and just as soon as was dressed she would call the guys and they could come back and rescue her. The coast was almost clear, she could see Daniel peering back down over the area near the gate. If she was quick enough she knew she could get in behind the shield undetected. She went for it.

Just as she reached the shelter of the wind barrier her foot caught on her cooking stove sending it flying. "Dammit." she declared as she heard Daniel's approach.

"Sam is that you?" He looked around. "Jack I think I heard something back here at the camp."

"Check it out Danny." her CO announced over the radio. "But be careful."

Man it was good to hear his voice and see her friend but why hadn't they come twenty minutes later when she would have been home for the night. She laughed aloud at the irony of her own wish. She had been waiting for this moment and it had come a lot sooner than she expected and now she was hiding out of vanity.

"Sam! It is you!" "She's here Jack, Teal'c, she's hiding behind the bed."

"On my way Daniel, do not do anything, do you hear me. Hold your position till I get there."

Sam could hear the waver in Jack's voice that told her he was running. She was out of time.

"Hi Sam." Daniel offered gently.

"Hi." she offered back.

"You want to come out?"

"No." she told him morosely. She really, really did not.

"I won't hurt you."

Sam rolled her eyes. "I know that Daniel."

"Where, where is she?" Jack appeared on scene clearly over excited by the news. Teal'c was not far behind.

"I'm right here, Sir." Sam answered, her face going beet red as she peeked out at her CO, this was getting ridiculous.

Jack bolted towards her. "Carter it's-"

"Don't!" she warned, stopping him in his tracks. "Don't come any closer."

"What's the matter, you hurt?"

"No, no I'm fine."

"Sick?"

"No not that either."

"Well what then?" Jack was at a loss.

"Perhaps Major Carter is somewhat lacking in attire." Teal'c had spotted the package with her clothing that had fallen out of her reach in the middle of the room when she upturned the makeshift bed.

"What?" Jack looked confused for a moment then catching his friend's meaning his face began to flush. "Oh well Sam if that's the problem we can sort that out for you." he stated as nonchalantly as possible. He dropped off his pack and unclipped his P-90 preparing to give her his own coverall.

"Stop Sir, I don't need your coverall, I'm not naked, not exactly." Enough was enough Sam knew when it was time to surrender. Sighing she prepared herself for the onslaught and pushed to her feet.

Daniel broke instantly, guffawing loudly and banging his knees. Teal'c's left eyebrow disappeared off the radius of his head as he just stared, his mouth actually falling open. But it was the Colonel who had caught and was holding her attention. He was simply looking at her and saying nothing. Sam recognised the look and it left her somewhat dumb-founded. The first time she'd seen it was when she'd put on that stupid blue dress in the Mongol village all those years ago. The last time was when she wore her cute PJ's at the last team sleepover at Daniel's place.

Sam forgot herself and placed her hands on her hips. "So help me Sir, if you say I look great?" she left the threat hanging.

Jack was about to respond when Sam's sudden movement caused the stitching to come loose at one shoulder. Urgently she wrapped her hands around herself, trying to protect her dignity. This set Daniel off on a whole new level but Jack saw something else. Carter was suddenly quite clearly upset. He reckoned she had probably been through quite an ordeal and was right at the end of her tether. "Here." he said quietly as he quickly stripped out of his coverall. "Teal'c get him out of here." he barked at the Jaffa.

The big guy nodded and Daniel's laughter was soon muffled by the dense vegetation in the surrounding area as Teal'c marched him off in the direction of the waiting ship.

Jack stood respectfully with his back turned while Sam changed.

"Um, you can look now, Sir." Carter offered still feeling somewhat chagrin.

Slowly Jack turned, his cap in his hand and regarded his 2IC just a little more fondly than he intended. "That's much better." he whispered.

Sam looked down at herself and shifted from foot to foot. She certainly did feel more comfortable.

"So?" he asked.

"So." she answered.

"Tough six weeks?"

"Nah not to bad, basic survival, you know."

He nodded, noting her averted gaze. "Tired then?"

Sam's head popped up. Now that he said it she was, she really, really was. The momentary weakness and his empathy got the better of her and she broke her cardinal rule, before she knew it she had rushed into his arms. "It's so good to see you Sir, you have no idea."

Jack was slow to register the fact that his lost 2IC was actually wrapped in his arms but he heard her words clear as day. "Oh I have some idea Sam, I really do." For a moment longer he held her, sharing in her relief. "Now what say we get you back, you could sure use some civilisation if you know what I mean."

Sam tore free from him and stepped back, her cheeks once again red. "Oh, ah, sorry Sir, I suppose I do stink a bit don't I?"

"Don't worry about it Major. The main thing is we found you and you're okay. Good job you left that envelope for Hammond to find, where did you come up with that? That was some fine piece of intel Carter."

Casually they walked back towards the ship as she divulged the whole story. "Oh and one other thing Sir, we can't go just yet. I think I fixed the DHD but I need you to power it up."

"Me?" Jack stopped short.

"Yes Sir, I think it's Ancient technology, run by the Ancient gene."

"Oh forget that, let's just go home. And we're not going to Q4A gates anymore by the way."

Carter dropped her head, she didn't want to seem ungrateful to her CO for the rescue but. "I worked really hard on it, Sir. Besides it'll only take a few minutes and..." she hesitated, reluctant to point out the obvious "...wouldn't it be quicker to just gate home if we can?"

"That sounds good to me Jack. I need to get back."

"Dad!" Sam called and ran to her father.

"Hi sweetie, you doing okay?"

"What are you doing here? I didn't expect you to come."

"Yeah well it just so happens that outpost is mine for the next few weeks. Selmak requested it. Quite the co-incidence don't you think?" he winked at his baby girl.

"Quite." stated Jack with an air of O'Neill mystery. "But I still think we should trav-"

"Ah!" Jacob held up a finger and cut Jack off. For a moment he was silent as he had an internal conversation. "Yeah okay, Selmak and I are both in agreement that Sam is not travelling with us in the al'quesh until she has had a bath."

"Dad!" Sam choked on her own affront.

"Ship rules honey. It's a confined space, bad enough we had to share it with a Jaffa and his appetite but you as well, no, no can do. Take the gate and I'll come visit you as soon as we are done here." He smiled at his embarrassed daughter. "Love you kiddo, even if you do stink like a Martian's armpit."

Sam laughed at the in-joke, then more so at the Colonel's confused expression. "It's something Dad used to say to Mark to get him to bath as a kid. He hated bath night."

"Oh." said Jack suddenly feeling left out. Being funny was his gig. "Shall we then?" he asked pointing at the gate.

"Sure." she smiled.

"After you...Leafy. Leafy Mc Martian."

Sam sighed and moved out, she knew it was too good to be true. He was going to spend months torturing and teasing her. Maybe she should have just stayed hidden.

FIN

AN: That's all folks.